


stone, leaves, fire

by mysticalmuddle



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Cousin Incest, F/M, Getting Together, Hair Washing, Mild Hurt/Comfort, My Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Is Just Bath Scenes All the Way Down, R Plus L Equals J
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:49:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23600344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysticalmuddle/pseuds/mysticalmuddle
Summary: “If you ever want to stop kinging and spend the rest of your days washing ladies’ hair, there’s a future in it for you.”
Relationships: Jon Snow/Arya Stark
Comments: 47
Kudos: 184





	stone, leaves, fire

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first thing I've ever written that wasn't rated Teen, so please be gentle with me.

> At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled  
>  after a night of rain.  
>  I dip my cupped hands. I drink  
>  a long time. It tastes  
>  like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold  
>  into my body, waking the bones. I hear them  
>  deep inside me, whispering

* * *

The bathwater was so hot it nearly burned the sole of her foot. Arya hissed, withdrew her foot fully, then shoved it back in with a determined flinch. All the little scratches and scabs on her leg started to complain at once.

She wobbled, gripped the edge of the tub, and eased her other leg into the water with a groan.

“Is all to your liking, milady?” the maid asked, fussing over the crumpled pile of Arya’s clothes where they lay wadded and shedding mud onto the floor.

“Well enough,” Arya said. She stared down at her feet, her ankles pinking up from the heat, and added silently, _But for how I feel as if a hundred men in plate have had a go at me in the yard_.

The maid nodded nervously and crumpled her apron in two handfuls. She was so new Arya didn’t even know her name; if she had to face Arya’s strange foul mood then she’d scarce last a day. “You may go,” Arya said firmly.

“But your hair, milday,” the maid said, high and piping. “Lady Sansa said, I always, that is— Shall I wash it first?”

Her patience had been spent on fools for two weeks and there was nothing left. “Go,” Arya said and showed the maid all her teeth. She knew it could not be called a smile. “Please.”

The maid bobbed a hurried awkward curtsy and fled. Arya waited until the door had shut before she forced the rest of her body into the water and as she was alone felt no need to muffle her cry. It was a quiet pitiful noise lost at once to the wash of the water against the tub sides and the drip as she raised her hand out of the water and rubbed her face.

Hot water was poor for bruises and it felt like her whole body was naught but bruises now. She splashed a palmful of water across the dried blood smeared over her upper arm and laid her head back against the beaten copper side of the tub.

There was soap set out on the wooden stool by the tub. It was all the fine milky stuff out of Dorne that Sansa favored, scented like flowers and fruit. And gods but she knew it would burn when she used it.

“A kingdom for some real soap,” Arya muttered to herself. The Southron kingdom, of course, because then it could be useful at last. Everything below the Neck could go to Braavos for want of a single bar of soap.

Nothing worked half so well for scrubbing grit out of your skin than the thick coarse yellow chunks found in certain bath houses in Braavos, made to scrub the body same as to scrub the floor.

She picked up one of the linen lengths, soft to the touch and loosely woven for Sansa didn’t consider plain rags fine enough for a princess and a lady to use, and wet it through then worked it cautiously across the torn skin on her knee.

“Fuck,” Arya muttered at once and dropped the rag into the water. It was so stupid to her that the sharp stinging pain at the end of a thoroughly dreadful day was enough to made tears prick at the corners of her eyes; she rubbed them out with a beleaguered sigh.

Washing could wait. She back lay in the water, breathing in and out in careful rhythm until she was in no danger of crying anymore.

When someone knocked on her door slow and hesitant like they were unsure of the welcome they’d find within, Arya thought about simply sinking under the water and holding her breath until they went away.

And then Jon said through the heavy oak, “Arya?” so softly and coaxingly he might have been trying to call a bird out of a bush to perch on his hand.

“Aye, come in,” she called unthinkingly, for to say ought else went against her every instinct. She wanted comfort and badly; here was Jon at her door like he knew it from half a castle away.

Arya tilted her head back until she could stare at the ceiling again and watched the whispering shadows the fire and the candles threw across it. She tried very hard not to think about why she wanted Jon.

She couldn’t see him for the sheet the maid had tacked up around the tub but she heard his heavy steps slow and stop just inside the door.

“Pardons,” he said, surprised and a little embarrassed. “I didn’t know you were bathing. I’ll just, I’ll come back, shall I?”

Frustration clawed at her throat. “Westerosi!” Arya huffed down at the water. “Northmen!”

It was unconscionable that Jon might appear for but a few seconds then disappear himself just as quickly when not five minutes before she had been nearly crying in her bath, but the unfairness of the world was no stranger to her.

“There’s a sheet up,” Arya said irritably and rolled over in the water, sending little waves sloshing over the tubside to pool on the floor. “You can’t see hardly anything.”

“It isn’t proper,” Jon said. His voice was tight and Arya was certain his sword hand was a fist at his side.

“Then it’ll have to wait ‘til the morrow, whatever you want,” she snapped.

Arya scowled at his shadow beyond the sheet and fished under herself for the cloth. “I’m going to bed after this,” she muttered sullenly, “and if sitting four feet away behind a screen while I wash is too much for you, the sheer stress of attending while I’m in bedclothes might kill you. Again.”

“Your japes have not gotten any better while you were away,” Jon said flatly and Arya was sure for a moment that he would leave. She scrubbed another round of slow tears off her face with her forearm and chewed her lip.

She heard the door shut and the latch click into place. But Jon was still on this side of it as he set the bar, breathing regular and easy. Arya listened, reassured, as he took off his swordbelt, the clink of the buckle and the low whistle through air as he tossed it on the bed and then the rustle of leather and linen as he knelt to take off his boots.

The soap was no more palatable now than it had been a quarter watch ago. Arya grit her teeth and worked it into a lather, then worked the lather into her knees.

Beyond the curtain, Jon made a circle of the room and stopped just at her table. He was limned dark through the sheet in weak candlelight as he considered the cup set out just so.

“Do you often take wine in the evenings?” he asked.

“No,” Arya said, “but that doesn’t seem to stop the maid from setting it out.”

Jon laughed and poured wine into a cup with a splash. She felt distantly glad he’d get some use out of it. Arya herself hardly ever drank the stuff, much preferring watered ale or rum.

She might like some rum now, after flying eight feet into the air and coming down on the sharpest rock in the world in just such a way that she’d be limping for days.

“Did you want something?” she asked to distract herself from those bitter thoughts as she worked sand out of her skin.

“Aye,” Jon said, then nothing else.

Her knees were as clean as they were going to get. She’d put a salve on them later to keep the scabs from tearing every step she took. “Helpful,” she said dryly to Jon. “Is this a game? Some new fashion in court started while I was away? Must I guess?”

She heard the vibrating drag of wood on stone as Jon pulled a chair closer to the curtain. “Shouldn’t be that hard,” he said. “Why do I always come and find you?”

Arya snorted. “Which lord are you hiding from this time?” she teased. Gods but only a few words from him were better than any balm. “Only, I haven’t the habit of bathing in skirts. If you want to hide behind them, you’ll needs come back tomorrow anyway.”

He laughed, a big surprised bark. “They’re a formidable defence,” he said. “But no. Shall you try again, my lady?”

The cut on her hip was going to need more attention than a fast wash. It wasn’t deep enough to stitch, only wide and aching from the acres of torn skin and bruised all through the muscle from the rock she’d caught there as she’d landed.

“I haven’t the head for it right now,” Arya admitted. “I’m too—”

“Tired, aye,” Jon said knowingly.

“A fine guess,” she said back, a touch sour. “I might have said happy or busy or any other number of things.”

“I can yet hear it in your voice,” Jon said. “Ser Jaime told me you pushed hard coming back.”

“Did he also say it rained every day?” Arya asked. She touched the very edge of the wound on her hip. “And sleeted twice and us with no tents sleeping on the muddy ground?”

“No,” Jon said. “But I managed a guess based on the state of him. He seemed very eager for his bath, more so than usual.”

“No one’s prying him out of there before the morrow,” Arya agreed. “Mayhaps Brienne will get lucky and he’ll drown.”

“Yes, because she thinks being married to him is such a trail,” Jon drawled. He took a swallow of fine. “I’m here for the same reason I always am,” Jon went on, unhurried. “And like as not the same reason Lady Brienne came running out of her meeting with Sansa to see to her husband.”

“To drown me?” Arya guessed and let her hip alone. “As she’s been plotting to off him? If so, you’ve picked a fine time for it; I haven’t got a single knife on me. Aye, I’d say come and try your luck.”

Jon laughed and just the sound of it warmed her better than the water. “Drown you!” he said. “It’s because I missed you, you little fool.”

The water was very hot, the steam. It made her pink up from her hairline down across her chest. Arya scrunched the rag in her hand and said a little shyly, “Two weeks is hardly the longest we’ve been apart.”

“Two days is too long,” Jon said firmly. “Two hours is yet too long.”

She swallowed and turned her attention to tend her elbows, which was sure to keep the silly grin off her face. “You hardly needs a nursemaid,” she said tartly.

“No, but I’ve missed my companion,” Jon said. He asked softly, “Who else can I trust to subdue my unruly lords? Aye, and give me reasonable advice when I’m surrounded by fools and take away my dinner knife every time Lord Glover comes up to the dias to interrupt my dinner?”

“Surely I’d have heard if Lord Glover left us yet,” Arya called. “There’d be feasting in the hall. So I’ll wager he survived my absence, thanks.”

“Barely,” Jon said and gods but he sounded like he was sulking over it. 

Sometimes around her he still acted the silly green boy, the only one who’d indulged her endlessly and her the only one who saw his grumpy sulks. It made her heart ache a little, that they were still so often bare to each other as they had been when they were children.

But it wasn’t the only part of her that ached. There was no more putting it off with the rest of her sore spots seen to. Arya touched the rag to her hip and swallowed the low groan at the burn of the soap.

It was only a thin sheet keeping them apart and Jon knew her too well. Her breath hitched and he heard it, sitting as he was not four feet away. His cup came down on the stone floor with a loud clack and he demanded, “Are you well?”

“Only a little mishap,” Arya lied. She put her hand back to her hip and it came away rosy pink with bloody bathwater. “Just now when I arrived. An accident in the stable yard.”

“An accident,” Jon said and she read a wealth of disbelief in his voice.

“Yes,” Arya said. She rinsed her hand clean and glowered at the soap. “I fell from my horse.”

Jon was silent. And then his chair moved on the stone again and he came closer to the curtain. Arya heard the low whisper of his stocking feet against the rush mats. She peered up at his shadow, watched his profile as he ran a hand over his hair.

“And who caused this accident?” he demanded coldly and the anger in his voice was enough to make her shiver.

“No one,” she tried out of habit and winced as soon as she said it. 

“No one, aye,” Jon said, thick with scornful sarcasm.

“You, who demanded I take jumping over fences when you were scarcely three years old, fell for no reason," Jon said and all the hair rose on the back of Arya’s neck at how coldly he said it. "I put you on your first pony myself,” he went on, "and taught you how to ride."

“No one!" Jon said with plain disgust. "You who rode with the Dothraki in the war. You have _never_ fallen from your horse before; you can’t be dragged off the damn beast once you’re firm in the saddle.”

The water splashed as Arya slid deeper into the tub. It washed over her chin and the thin scab there. She shut her burning eyes, thoroughly embarrassed by how angry he was. “Don’t be wroth,” she said in a small voice.

“Wroth,” Jon said. He huffed out an aggrieved breath, turned towards the curtain, then turned away again. “I’m not wroth,” he said. “Not with you, at least. Who did it, Arya? Tell me and we’ll say no more on it.”

There was no use hiding it; Jaime likely hadn’t told him but as a stop-gap measure to be spared Jon’s wrath. “Lord Ryswell was in the yard when we rode in,” Arya muttered. “He must have wanted to speak with me; he grabbed at my horse’s bridle.”

“And your horse didn’t like that,” Jon said grimly.

“Not very much,” Arya muttered back.

Daenerys had given Apple to Arya, a mare so sleek and beautiful and dangerous she could have been a prized mount for the gods themselves. She was sired off of Daenerys’ own silver and lived half-wild. 

She was a joy to ride, and not just because she only tolerated Arya’s touch. Even the stable boys who’d been raised ahorse lived in wild fear of displeasing her.

To say Apple was offended to have spoiled little lordling grabbing at her face was to say far too little about it. “She threw me,” Arya said into the bath water.

“I suppose it’s too much to ask that you went to see the maester?” Jon grumbled. He paced a few steps away then came back and Arya saw that even just the shadow of his body was stiff with displeasure.

“Nothing’s broken,” she said. “And nothing needs stitching. It seemed foolish to bother the maester with so little.”

It was a familiar argument; she expected Jon to mouth off one of his usual answers. Instead he paused in his short harried steps and said, “May I— That is, could I—”

He touched the curtain with a hand, just enough to make the thin cloth flutter where it fell mayhaps an inch or two above the bare floor.

“You want to come around,” Arya said in surprise.

“No!” Jon said at once and loudly. The silence was thick with his stillness. Then he swallowed and added more quietly, “Not if it will discomfort you.”

She chewed at her lip. It was not herself she was worried about being offended. “We swam together as children,” Arya said. “This is not so different. And things are done elseways, in other places. Men and women bathe together. You needn’t ask, if it will not bother you.”

“But I am asking,” Jon said and his voice was a little hoarse. “May I come around, my lady?”

Arya shifted in the water, drawing her knees up to her chest. She kept her weight carefully off her aching hip and said, “Aye, alright.”

Jon had his hair drawn back and knotted behind his head; the scar that ran across his brow and eye and cheek was very red against his skin. He kept his eyes carefully to himself until he was settled on the floor next to her and even then he looked past her to the fireplace.

And he had the cup of wine in his hand, which he offered to her with a little quirk of his lips.

Arya took it carefully so as to not drip water on his hand and sleeve. The wine was overly sweet, a fruity red from the Reach that had her wrinkling her nose.

When she set the cup aside on the stool, Jon was looking at her for true.

“Your face,” he said and touched his own chin. His eyes were still dark with anger and his mouth curled down sullenly.

“A scrape only,” Arya said. “I don’t think it’ll even bruise.”

“But that is just the least of it,” Jon said knowingly and this look he gave her was familiar. It twinned frustration and fondness both. “Where else, then? I’d have the full report, if I might.”

It wasn’t so different from sharing bathwater in Braavos, Arya told herself. No one there kept their eyes so firmly to themselves and after a while all the flesh became as innocuous as the tiles on the walls. She let go of her legs and extended one carefully to prop her foot against the tub side.

“My knees,” she said. “And my hip took the worst of it.”

Jon’s eyes went to her knee then for the barest second to the bathwater over her lap before he looked away, his ears gone red.

Arya fussed with the cloth, setting more soap bubbles into the water. “Whoever checks the stable yard did a poor job,” she said, trying to sound light. “There was a rock where I liked it least to be.”

“I’ll send a page to walk the yards tomorrow,” Jon said. He was still looking away. “I’ll send two or three. They’re just lazing round the Hall during the day anyway.”

“They won’t thank you for that,” Arya said. She ducked her head and peered at him from the corner of his eye. He had his arm braced on the high side of the tub and his burned hand closed in a tight fist.

“Don’t be too harsh to Lord Ryswell,” she said after a moment. “He didn’t mean to send me off my horse so quickly, and head over heels at that.”

“Then he should have thought about it before he grabbed your bridle,” Jon snapped. His hand closed up tighter, his shoulders a hard angry line under his clothes.

“It’s not as if he killed me,” Arya tried but Jon lost the color in his face in one angry breath.

“He could have,” he said and it was almost a snarl. “You took a rock to your hip? It could have been to your _head_ , Arya!” He looked at her again and his face was stricken. “Men have died falling off their horses,” he said hoarsely.

“Aye, but I didn’t,” Arya murmured. She reached out and left wet fingerprints on his shirtsleeve. Someone had taken time to embroider little running wolves on the cuffs. She stroked her fingers over the threads of them and watched the grey darken nearly to black.

“My head’s too hard for that,” Arya said. “You ought to know.”

Jon snorted, but it was still an unhappy sound. “I’m fine,” Arya insisted and tugged a little at his sleeve. “Truly. Check if you want; I didn’t even bruise myself there.”

“Mayhap I should,” Jon muttered. “You’ve obviously cracked your skull if you’re arguing Ryswell’s case to me.”

“If it’ll make you less sour about the matter, go ahead,” Arya said. She shook her hair out from behind her ears and it fell in clumps over her shoulders, dripping thin brownish water down her chest. “And I expected an apology,” she went on, “when you realize it’s better not to have to scrub Ryswell bits off the Hall floor, _Your Grace_.”

This snort was closer to laughter. Jon scrubbed a hand across his face then started to unlace his jerkin.

Arya raised her eyebrows, her face going over hot again.

“None of that look, if it please you,” Jon said. “I remember when your lady mother tried to put you and Sansa in the same bath. You were far too excited to share the bathwater with all that you could. They were still mopping up the floor three days on.”

“I was a child,” Arya said with some dignity. She put her nose in the air. “And I’ve grown more mature since then.”

“Oh, have you?” Jon asked. He rounded the head of the tub and a shiver went down Arya’s spine, that someone was kneeling behind her and she with no knives at hand.

It’s just Jon, she told herself. He’d fall on his own sword before he’d hurt me.

Out loud she said, “If I want to share my bathwater now, I’ve better ways of doing it.”

“I tremble in fear,” Jon said right in her ear and laughed when she jumped.

“You’re horrid,” Arya said and slapped at the water. “I’ve changed my mind; don’t touch me.”

“Too late,” Jon said and she felt his fingers combing through her hair slowly, careful of the tangles they caught.

After a moment, he said teasingly, “I cannot tell if these are lumps on your head or if you’re truly so all over mud.”

She’d forgotten once her clothes were off that the yard had been hellish with mud. “Don’t put your hands in it, then,” Arya said, embarrassed. His shirts were all so fine now and he hadn’t even rolled up his sleeves. She pulled away, trying to turn, and his hand on her shoulder made her still.

Her face and neck were so red she felt almost feverish. “Let go,” Arya whined.

“You can’t go to bed like this,” Jon said. He worked with his fingers the tense muscle under his hand and Arya felt the knot there go slack with a jolt of exquisite pain. She shuddered tightly as he said, “They’d have to burn the pillows. Let me wash it out for you.”

“I _can_ wash my own hair,” Arya said and her own sourness surprised her a little. “You’ll be surprised to learn not all the world has nosy maids eager to tear out half the tangles I’m in the habit of keeping in there.”

The hand on her shoulder ran up her neck and scraped over her scalp. She couldn’t help but press against it. “I’m asking,” Jon said and all the teasing was gone from his voice. “Will you let me, my lady? As a favor to me.”

Arya ducked her head. She rolled her shoulder and pushed the half-forgotten cloth across her arm. “The soap’s just there,” she said after a moment.

“Drink the rest of that wine,” Jon said. “And let me have the cup. I don’t much like my chances if I try and dunk you under.”

She giggled. “You shouldn’t,” Arya said and fetched the cup off the stool. The wine was just as bad as it had been before. She swallowed and said over her shoulder, peeking slyly at Jon from the corner of her eye, “I know at least half a dozen ways to kill someone who tries to murder me in my bath. It’s a specialty of mine, you see.”

“And are these perchance the new ways you have of sharing your bathwater?” Jon asked. He put out his hand and put his fingers over hers where they held the cup.

“There’s a little left,” Arya said, for fear of him dumping it into the bathwater. The scent of the soap was bad enough, and all the pink from the blood she’d scrubbed off.

“I know,” Jon said as he took the cup away. And then he put his mouth to the cup, to the place still wet from her mouth, and swallowed down the last of it.

Arya turned her eyes away and fussed nervously with the cloth. Not truly washing herself in earnest, just rubbing her fingers over the loose weave.

She took a nervous breath when Jon said, “Tip your head back for me.”

Arya let her head hang back, the ends of her hair heavy with water, and she stilled, barely breathing, when Jon’s hand scraped against the thin scar high on her forehead, nearly at her hairline, as he sheltered her eyes from the hot water he poured over her hair.

She felt a split second’s panic, being cradled with her head held back just so, and then the hot water ran down over her shoulders and neck and she sighed, melting into it.

“Is it too hot?” Jon asked and she shook her head. It was like the earlier panic never existed, so thoroughly had it slipped away; Jon wouldn’t hurt her. He carded her wet hair away from her face gently and poured over another cupful of water over her.

When Arya blinked her eyes open, feeling almost sleepy with the sudden deep comfort of it, he was looking down at her with his mouth curved up at the edge. He cupped her face, his sword callouses scratching deliciously at the tender skin of her cheek.

“I’ve seen cats less pleased to be petted,” Jon teased. “Are you going to start purring if I keep doing that?”

“I ought to scratch you,” Arya mumbled and turned her face deeper into his hand. “Shame I haven’t got a knife on me.”

“Well, have you at least got a comb?” He touched the hair at the back of her head, the thickest part still cool with mud. “The rest of this might need more work than a little water and soap.”

“It’s around here somewhere,” Arya said and whined unhappily when he took his hand away. “I didn’t mean go and look, you stupid!”

Jon’s eyes crinkled when he smiled. Someday he’d have fine lines at the corners, Arya thought happily. She’d keep him smiling often enough to ensure it.

Her dressing table had a candle on it, the big pewter box Arya kept locked, and the fine silver toilette set Lord Manderly had gifted her with, all the little vials and brushes and combs still packed neatly in the wooden box . She stretched herself out in the water, all her sore muscles tensing then slowly relaxing, and watched Jon consider her things.

“This is locked,” he said knowingly and rapped his knuckles against the pewter box. He shot her a sly look. “And all the better for me. I’d truly fear if you asked for something out of this.”

“Yes, because you’d simply sit and watch and let me poison you without a word,” Arya said and giggled at the image. “Perchance you might like some sweetsleep in your breakfast ale, Your Grace?”

Jon snorted. He ran his fingers over the wooden box next and said, “I am almost as afraid of this one.”

The idea of Jon afraid of a woman’s things, ribbons and combs and perfumes, was so ridiculous. Arya slid down until the water brushed at her chin and hid her smile in it.

“Aye, I know you’re laughing at me,” he said, disgruntled.

A sudden thought came to Arya, as swimmingly pleasurable as his hands in her hair. “You haven’t much experience with that?” she asked, knowing full well the answer, flutters in her stomach making her shiver.

Jon’s look at her now was deeply sardonic. “And when would I have had the chance?” he demanded and his mouth slid into a true grin. “Think I do a lot of rifling around a lady’s boudoir, do you? What kind of man do you take me for?”

“You’ve made friends of ladies before,” Arya protested weakly and slid her heel along the bottom of the tub.

“Not so good friends as that,” Jon said with a snort. “This,” and he waved his hand at the innocuous wooden box, “is as foreign to me as, well.”

He paused and a thoughtful look came over him.

“I cannot say my solar would be foreign to you,” Jon said softly and turned his eyes towards her. His ears were red again and it crept across his cheeks. “You’re in there often enough, being such a help to me as you are.”

Gods, but the water and the steam was hot. Arya put the back of her hand to her cheek, only a little cooler against the burning skin there, and said shyly, “You could acquaint yourself now. With a lady’s things. I don’t mind.”

“Oh?” Jon asked. He raised his eyebrows. “You’d trust a wretched cur such as myself with your ribbons and jewels?”

“You’ve given me more than half of those,” Arya laughed. “If you want a turn wearing them, you need only ask.”

She loved his smile, so bright and pleased, amused with himself and with her own quick wit. “We _do_ have the same coloring,” Jon said. He turned away and caught open the latch on the box with clever fingers. “They’d suit me just as well.”

The mirror lay on top of the rest, Arya knew. With a cloth over it. Some to protect it, some simply so she wouldn’t have to look at it every time she opened the damn box.

So of course Jon took the cloth off straight away. There were heaps of roses round the edge of the mirror, painted all shades of blue, and gilded vines and leaves made the slim handle. “Gods, that’s ugly,” Jon said and set it aside. “No wonder Manderly wanted to get rid of it.”

“It was his mother’s,” Arya protested and hid her face in her hands to mask the ill-mannered fit of giggles.

“Then she’s a stronger sort than me,” Jon said. “What kind of thing is that to see the first thing in the morning?”

He gave her a sly look. “Suppose you still use a knife blade when you neaten yourself? As you did during the war?”

“I’m not going to say!” Arya cried. “It was a gift and he was kind to offer it to me. Don’t ask me such a thing.”

“Such a thing as if you use your _lovely_ gift or not? And yet you’ve answered,” Jon said with great satisfaction. “And so we’ll say no more on the matter, than I hope that poor Manderly’s mother could do the same.”

There was a tray for bigger pieces of jewelry and ribbons underneath. Arya’s maid lived in fear of it, for Arya had no patience in removing such heavy pieces after suffering through a dinner or a meeting in them and everything was in a snarl, chains and ribbons and bracelets alike.

“Now I see why you offered me a free choice of this,” Jon said. “I’d have to undo the lot, which you no doubt live in horror of having to do yourself.”

“The one advantage of maids,” Arya said, “is such that I don’t have to. But please, feel free to help yourself.”

“I’d sooner look back into that cursed mirror,” Jon said. He stacked the tray neatly on the table and squinted into the box. “At last,” he said with pleasure. “Combs. I was beginning to doubt you had any.”

“No,” he said slowly as he took the tray in. “Now I see I shouldn’t have doubted at all. You’ve in fact got a great deal of them.”

“Aye and good luck picking,” Arya said. She laughed at his confused frown. “For they’ve each got a different use.”

“My hair is only a little shorter than yours,” Jon told her. “And it is not even a quarter so much trouble.”

He set aside three combs carefully, all of them studded with delicate pearls and useful only as decorations; Arya had never worn them. And then he paused. “Now this,” he said and turned to brandish a comb at her. “This seems useful.”

There was a delicate sprig of flowers carved from stone at the top and a curled up bird in a nest at one end, a little tab that didn’t quite fit the careful beauty of the rest.

“Oh, exceedingly,” Arya said. “Pull on the bird,” she suggested and turned more fully on her unhurt side, folding her arms on the edge of the tub so she could rest her chin on them.

Jon obliged her and the thin blade slid out with a whispering sigh.

He laughed at once, rueful. “I should not be surprised at all. I am not,” he said and pointed the blade at her, “using this one. No, you shall have to simply drown me if I pull your hair too hard.”

“Might be I will,” Arya said, “if you let the water get any colder before dunking my head in it, my lord.”

“Then pray direct me to a plain comb!” Jon said as he set aside the knife, carefully slid back into its delicate sheath. “Or we are like to be here all night. Now,” he said with another look at her, “I wouldn’t mind that much myself but I live in dread of you sleeping in the tub. It’d be poor work to say a lady as distinguished as yourself died of drowning in her bath.”

There was only one plain comb in there, hidden carefully under the tray like it was made of jewels and gold. “Pray lift out that tray,” Arya said and eased herself back into the water.

She turned her eyes towards the ceiling again, that she might not have to look at Jon when he realized it was the comb he’d had his wildling friend carve for her, the wood shiny with oil and gentle wear for she used it every morning.

But Jon said nothing and when she glanced at him he was packing up her box neatly.

The water had gone from scalding to merely hot. Arya picked at the scab on her wrist that matched the hole torn in her glove and chewed at her lip. Finally Jon said as he knelt behind her again, “I did not know you kept that.”

“You gave it to me,” she said stupidly and blushed all down her chest.

His hand was careful on her chin as he tilted her head back again and poured more water over her. “It seems such a mean thing sitting there next to the rest,” Jon said.

“Well I like it,” Arya huffed, feeling offended. She didn’t need gilted combs, or even stone or silver ones. “It was the first gift I’d gotten in a long time. And it’s well made at that. Fine enough for me.”

They sat in silence for a while. Jon’s hands worked in her hair and Arya relaxed out of her offense.

“I’m glad,” he said eventually, “that you liked it so well. That you like it still. I was nervous enough to give it to you. I didn’t want you to think I was trying to make you into something you’re not.”

“You were so wild when you came back to me,” Jon said just in her ear. He stroked down her hair, all sleek with water, and said roughly, “It suited you. I didn’t, I wouldn’t have you thinking I wanted some simpering lady in your place.”

Her eyes started to prickle again. Arya breathed out sharply and said, “I think you are the only one in my whole life who never tried to change me. You’ve always loved me as I am.”

“Aye,” Jon said. He cupped the side of her neck in his big hot hand then palmed the ball of her shoulder. He ran his hand down her arm, a slow drag of hot skin on skin. “As much as it drives me to distraction every time you ride off madly or perform acrobatics in the stable yard.”

“Wasn’t my choice,” Arya said. “This time at least.” She thought to touch his hand before it withdrew but then he slipped it away before she could.

“No,” Jon agreed and started to pick through the things laying out on the wooden stool. “If it was your fault you went flying in such a way, I’d take your sword and put you in your chambers for a week or two, however long it took my poor heart to stop pounding like as to beat out of my chest.”

His voice dropped into a hoarse, angry threat. “Lord Ryswell, on the other hand, I have no tender feelings towards. He’s lucky you’ve convinced me to let him keep his head.”

There was no point pleading the case further; Jon would send Lord Ryswell away with even greater suspicion and rage. “Those soaps are all the same,” Arya said instead and watched him settle his hand on one.

Jon dipped the bar of soap into the water next to her arm and brought it to suds, then stilled his hands. “That’s—” he said.

The thick, overpowering smell of flowers and orange filled the air. Arya wrinkled her nose against it.

“Foul,” she agreed. “I’ll smell like I was rolling about in some Southron garden.”

“Mayhaps it’s only a little better than smelling like horse and mud,” Jon said. And then with considerable more cheer, “You certainly won’t be able to sneak about so much.”

Arya laughed. “I should have dunked myself in the horse trough and had done with it,” she said. “But it’s too late for that, I think.”

“Aye, try and go downstairs to do it now and see how far I let you get,” Jon said. He worked the soap into her hair slowly, combing it in with his fingers and taking special care to rub it through the mud.

“Keep doing that,” Arya said and lost the rest of her words to a gasp as he scrubbed his fingers over her scalp and a shower of hot sparks ran down her spine.

“I will,” Jon said, low and still a little hoarse.

She thought to correct him, to finish her light jape, _Keep doing that and I won’t even bother trying_ , but he picked up the comb and at the first touch of the thin wooden teeth against her head she slapped a hand over her mouth before the high thin noise building in her throat could escape it.

Arya swallowed rapidly. Jon paused and asked with some concern, “Am I hurting you?”

“No,” Arya said. Her voice was breathy and she winced.

“Are you bruised here, you little liar?” Jon pressed. “I didn’t feel any swelling or sore spots before but that might have been the mud keeping them hidden.”

Arya thought she’d rather drowned herself in the bath water than admit the little noise was shock and pleasure both, a confused mix. She didn’t let the maids help her bathe; the only time in Braavos she’d accepted assistance was the mortifying rag baths the waif had given her after Arya had been cleaved nearly in half by a Sorrowful Man during the Silent War.

“It is nothing,” she muttered. The length of cloth she’d been scrubbing herself with was draped over one of her legs. She picked it up and applied it to the long narrow scar running down the front of her chest and belly.

“Aye, alright,” Jon said after a moment and resumed combing her hair, his hands even more gentle and careful than before.

Love for him swelled in her chest fiercely. “You’ve never hurt me,” she murmured, feeling sullen and a little shy. The hot water, the thorough attention of his hands, all of it soothed away the disagreeableness of the day and left her drowsing, running the cloth slowly over her stomach again and again.

The comb dragged through her hair so gently she could only feel the lightest silky pressure. One or twice Jon paused to work apart a knot with his fingers; he ran his whole hands over her scalp afterwards until she was boneless with the deep pleasure of being touched with such care.

After a while he set aside the comb and said, “Close your eyes.”

The darkness behind her lids was lavender and deep red, the firelight over her face and the water hot as it dripped down her neck and chest in slow, regular cascades. She made little noises in her throat, soft animal sounds at being so comfortable, so soothed.

Jon breathed out behind her as he worked and said, “Speak to me. Say something.”

“Say what?” Arya asked, scarcely more than a whisper. Her limbs were limp with pleasure, the slow good burn of muscles worked through a fight, of stretching out cat-like on a soft mattress after a long night’s quiet sleep.

“Anything,” Jon said and poured more water over her head, a delicious spill of warmth all down her back. “Anything you like. I just want to hear you speak, is all.”

“You are better than any lady’s maid at this,” Arya said at once and stupidly, too cross-eyed with the delicious feelings to think. She slid the cloth over herself again, a drag from her throat down to just before where her coarse curls started growing. “If you ever want to stop kinging and spend the rest of your days washing ladies’ hair, there’s a future in it for you.”

She felt like she was burning up; she knotted the cloth in her hand and gasped when he touched her fingers where they still rested low over her stomach.

The air was thick with the soapy perfume; the whole world was a dream when Jon took the crumpled cloth away from her and set it to float in the water. He put his hand in the same place on the soft skin of her stomach and ran his thumb over the thin scar coursing through the middle of her.

He pressed against her and drew her steadily back to lean against the side of the bath so he could hold her more easily, his other arm coming around her to join the first. He pressed his cheek to the sleek top of her head, the wet spill of her clean hair.

“Let me wash your hair,” he said to her roughly. His voice was thick with want. “Not just tonight, but always. I’ll send away Lord Ryswell alive if it please you, and make the pages take all the rocks out of the yard. I’ll give you a finer comb, I’ll give you anything. Arya—”

Her breath hitched. The world swam hotly. His hand inched down slowly and she could have stopped it at any moment; he cupped the swell of her, just the tip of one finger sliding between her lips, and she made a noise she’d never made before in her life.

He was hotter than the bathwater. Gods but Jon was setting her on fire. She trembled in his arms and shivered harder when his other hand crept down to grab greedily at the swell of her hip.

Arya remembered only too late the raw meat that damn rock had made of it. She cried out, jerking away at the sharp burst of pain, and Jon fell back from her and sprawled across the stone.

Pressure on the sting could scarce help if half the skin was gone but the urge remained to cup the wound in her own hand, to nurse at the burn of it. Arya blinked stupidly, panting, and put a hand on the edge of the tub.

Her knees ached when she knelt, but it brought her hip out of the water enough that she could better see it.

“Gods,” Jon said, despairingly. He was staring as well and put out a hand towards her, then thought better of it and pulled it back.

“It isn’t so bad,” Arya said, dripping water sliding off her and chilling her rapidly in the cool air. He blanched when she looked up and tried to smile.

“You didn’t know,” Arya said, feeling frustratingly like something had been stolen from her. The last time she’d felt like this, she’d dug Needle into Polliver’s belly until he died; she didn’t think this was a situation a sword could solve.

Jon cleared his throat. “The maester should see to that,” he said darkly. He rose to his knees, then to his feet. “Can you get out of the tub on your own?” he asked.

Arya eyed the high copper side. It seemed more treacherously tall than when she’d climbed in. The cold air was not soothing her half so well as the hot water had and after such a long still rest half a dozen new aches were making themselves known.

Jon was even less confident than her. He came over, saying tightly, “Let me help you. I cannot even say how much I do not want you to fall.”

She shivered from the cool air and looked at him, prickling all over with keen embarrassment. He hadn’t truly meant it before or at least not enough to mean it still once he woke up from whatever strange dream they’d been sharing.

“Aye,” Arya muttered and let him grip her arm. Jon was carefully with her, barely touching her, and he pulled away the moment she put both feet on the cold stone floor.

Her wrap was folded under the other cloths, the cup, the last piece of soap, and her wooden comb. Arya jerked it out of the pile hard enough to send the rest clattering to the floor, unfolded it, and wrapped it tightly around herself as tears burned at the corners of her eyes.

Her comb was lying on the stone, still dark with water . She forced down the urge to kick it and scream. She’d have to find another to use, no matter how she loved that one; she’d never be able to see it without remembering this horrible disastrous day.

I’ll get the maester,” Jon said, just his stocking feet visible as Arya stared at the floor and ground her teeth. “Stay here, alright?”

She chanced a look a little higher than his ankles. His shirt was wet all across the front, his wrists dripping damply. “Never mind it,” Arya said hoarsely. “I have a salve. I can see to it myself.”

She wanted, badly, for him to go away. She was still burning but now with fierce shame at herself that she’d let it go so far when she knew he didn’t really want her, that he would prefer to stay as he was, unattached but for his blood family.

Jon had made it clear he did not want a bride.

At least he hadn’t called her little sister yet as he did sometimes when he was tired and forgot himself. The windows of her room had shutters easy enough to open; Arya might throw herself out of one if he did so now.

“I—” Jon said, drawing himself up. And then she caught his eye, an accident that had her stilling a wince that wanted to crawl across her face, and watched him deflate all at once.

“No,” Jon said after a moment. “It’s an awkward place, where it is. I saw it fully when you stepped out of the bath.”

The blush on his cheeks deepened. “You cannot see the back of it,” Jon said. “Please, Arya. If not the maester, then let me help you. I won’t, I will not touch you in any way not needed, I swear it.”

The wrap warmed her only a little. With the pain in her side fading, Arya felt little but cold and tired, a bone-deep ache that edged so high as her heart, which itself felt flattened and bruised.

Jon’s jaw was set now, a hard stubborn line. Any other time Arya might have wanted to run her fingers over it until the wrinkle between his brows eased and he tried to bite her hand with a playful snap of teeth. Now she wanted him gone and quickly. She muttered, “Aye,” and crossed the room with a little limp.

The pewter box needed a key. She kept it hidden in a clever drawer in her dressing table which popped open at the touch of her fingers to the right place.

The salve was there in a little glass jar on the very top of the mess. Arya eyed the chair then reconsidered sitting as she passed the cool rounded glass hand to hand.

“Let me have it,” Jon said and came up to her side. His hands were warm on her cold wrist; he worked her fingers open to take it and undid the lid of the jar.

It was no different than bathing, Arya told herself as she bared her side and hip, twitching the wrap carefully to keep herself as covered as she could. Without the water around her she felt horribly exposed.

“Use only a little,” she said and her voice was strange to herself, husky and low. She pressed her lips together, mortified, and made herself finish. “The wound is clean and not like to fester.”

She glanced up then past him so she might not meet his eyes. Jon nodded but his hand went to her wrap and he eased the fabric back over her side carefully. “Your elbows first,” he said. “They’re raw as well.”

Arya huffed but let him take her arms one at a time and work the salve over the worst of the spots. It was thick and smelled strongly of piney resin; applying it was a ritual that soothed her feelings more so than her aches.

But even if she closed her eyes she couldn’t bring herself to pretend she was elsewhere. No one ever touched her like Jon did. He tended her gently but his hands weren’t indifferent; he stroked her wrist with his thumb as he rubbed salve into her upper arm and cupped the ball of her shoulder in his hand as he turned her slowly to reach her other arm.

And then he was done with them and he touched her waist, a touch so different from how he had before. This was hesitant and Arya winced with her face turned far away.

“I’ll be quick,” Jon said and eased the damp linen off her hip. He waited for her nod before he touched her again and then rubbed the salve over her skin slowly, in long tender strokes that made the tension in her shoulders and back ease a little.

Gods but she liked it when he touched her and she felt guilty every time at how much it pleased her. She felt like a thief, stealing little things Jon couldn’t even know he lost. She shook him off and said, “Enough.”

“Aye,” Jon said and eased the cloth back over her. It stuck coolly to the salve; she ought to bandage it to keep the greasy ointment off her sheets. She was just turning back to the dressing table, where she kept a roll of bandages tucked away in another drawer, when Jon knelt down gracefully before her.

His head was bowed and the back of his neck crimson. “Your knees now,” he said firmly.

Would that he leave! Arya chewed her lip and let him lift a linen a little above her knee until it rested halfway up her thighs and she put her hand there to hold it in place.

He took special care here. First he coaxed her to lift one leg and rest it on his thigh before he rubbed the ointment into her skin, then he did the same with the other leg.

Arya stared down at his face, breathless, and for a horrible moment she was certain she’d wear his fingerprints on her forever, tender on her thighs and arms and legs. The ointment would wash off and the scabs would heal and she’d be trapped in her own skin with the ghost of his touch until she was mad with it.

When she had both feet steady on the floor again, she couldn’t bring herself to speak. Jon looked up at her, his eyes dark and he said, “Arya,” and just that with such roughness in his voice.

Her heart pounded against her chest and on the tender inside of her wrists where he’d held her arms and between her legs where she ached with traitorous hateful desire.

And then Jon leaned forward, pressed his forehead to her stomach, and put his arms around her waist.

She choked. His face was hot against her skin; she was cool all over from the bathwater and the air. Her arms trembled at her sides for want of touching him.

And then he kissed her where he pressed his face and bit where he had kissed, that faint swell of skin just between her hips where she was a little soft from living like a lady and eating at Jon’s table, where the foods she liked best were laid out often and plenty.

His mouth was so hot, his teeth pressing and scraping against her. She put her hands in his hair and undid the knot of it desperately, feeling like she might faint, like she might cry. And then she put her fingers through his loose curls and held him there tightly.

He pulled away from her only far enough to rub his nose along her scar, the raised edge of it red under the linen where the cloth molded wetly to her skin.

“Gods,” he muttered, a hot puff of air against the wet mark from his mouth. “Gods.”

He pressed his mouth to the front of her good hip, a hot wet weight and she shifted nervously. “You don’t have to,” Arya said and her voice was high.

He kissed her belly again, drew the skin between his teeth, and sucked at it.

It felt so good she wanted to cry with it. She wanted it always, this deep burning in her belly and hot ache between her legs. She wanted and wanted and wanted most of all to not be a thief with him anymore.

She’d steal all his kisses and his touches if she could.

“Stop,” Arya said, “stop, please,” and shoved him away with a hand on his shoulder, stepping back quickly herself.

“You don’t, I know you do not want it,” she said, nearly panting. “And I couldn’t bear it to let you if you do not want it.”

Jon’s mouth was red with wet pressure. His eyes were so dark as to be black. “I don’t want it,” he rasped and his voice welled with disbelief. “You think I do not want this?”

“Aye,” Arya said hurriedly. There was some look on his face she had never seen before. “And I’m not upset, truly,” she went on, high and pained. “You needn’t pretend anymore. I will just, I will be better tomorrow, I swear it.” She rubbed at her eyes and her breath hitched. “If you would leave me now. Please.”

“Were we in the same room,” Jon said in a low dangerous voice, “not ten minutes ago, when I put my hands on you? Or was that some other wild Northron girl with a sweet and pretty look about her?”

Arya looked away. “I was there,” she said, “and it was a fine dream for us to share. But you needn’t think just because you touched me, and it was so little, truly, that I’d make you do what you don’t wish.”

Jon stood up. Gods but he was taller than her and broad like anything, so quick with a sharp word and a sharp sword. She loved him so terribly; after a lifetime of unfairness it seemed almost natural that he didn’t love her back as she did.

“What I wish,” Jon said, low and dark, “is to peel you out from that cloth and put you on your bed. And when you are lying there and I touch you again, it would not be just a _little_.”

He put his hand out and caught her wrist. His thumb brushed the blue vein on the inside and caught at her heartbeat. He said low and coaxingly, “Would you let me, my lady? Let me lay you out and touch you as I wished?”

His gentleness was as horrible as his passion. How carefully he spoke to her, like she was some wild thing about to flee. She couldn’t deny it and she didn’t want to.

“You didn’t want me before,” Arya said and put her hands over her face, hating herself.

Jon came closer, close enough she could feel the heat of his body through her thin cloth. “When is before?” he demanded. “When we were children? I loved you best of all then, but wanting wasn’t in either of us yet.”

She trembled. He let go her wrist and put an arm around her, drew her against his chest, and spoke into her ear.

“Or do you mean when you came back to me in the middle of war and spent two years sharing my bed and furs?” Jon rasped. “Was that this _before_ you speak on? Aye, when I wouldn’t let you away from me and fought always by your side? When you were the only joy I had in the cold and the dark?”

He kissed her ear then bent his head and kissed her neck.

She was burning. She wanted to throw open a window, she wanted to roll around in a pile of snow; Arya would do anything to put out the fire in her before it burned her through to char and blackened bone.

“Or mayhaps you mean after that,” Jon said and nuzzled into her hair, wet and clean from his own hands.

He said so darkly and hotly, “When I sought you out every night for the sheer joy of your company? When you spent the days speaking to my lords with mine own authority and the nights lying on the rug in my solar making me laugh when I was tired and ill-humored from the work of being king?”

Arya could scarcely breathe for fear of breaking his words apart, turning the ardent tone of them to scorn.

“What is this before, Arya? Is it when you’ve watched me burn every letter asking for your hand and every letter offering a hand to fit in mine?” Jon rasped.

Arya whined high in her throat and clutched at his damp shirt. She could feel the scars on his chest through the fine material. He had them because of her, because he’d loved her and loved her and never once forgotten her after the gods had torn them so cruelly apart.

“Do you mean I did not want you then?” Jon demanded. “Or do you mean tonight, when I came to your door because I couldn’t stand another hour without you? Or when I washed you as you lay in your bath because I wanted no hands on you but my own?”

His voice was so rough. He bit at her ear and she yelped, then he blew cool air over the stinging mark and she melted against him, his body hard and steady against hers.

He could take her weight, Arya knew. Easily. He could carry her, could put her on the bed, put his mouth back on her without the thin length of linen in his way.

“Or after that,” Jon said and slid his hand down her back to the lowest dip of it and then a little lower, until his fingers spread over the swell of her ass.

“Do you mean when I put my hand on your cunt?” Jon asked and grabbed at her, possessive and mean, so good Arya thought she’d cry.

Men had touched her ass before, through skirts or through breeches or riding leathers. Rough, demanding hands and half of them had come off at the wrist but a moment after.

It had never felt like this. Even killing them had never felt like this. Had never made her ache so in her chest, her heart going so madly and her head spinning with sweet dizziness.

He pulled away from her so slowly that Arya wasn’t sure at all what he was doing, until he put his hands on her arms to steady her as she swayed towards him.

She said, “No,” in protest but he only smoothed a hand over her tenderly.

“I want you,” Jon said. “Gods, Arya, I don’t know how much plainer I can make it. I want you now and I’ll want you always, I swear it.”

He touched his chest, just above the scars. “The gods wrote you on my heart,” he said. “You and no other. So will you let me, my lady? Let me touch you again? It would not be a dream at all, I swear that too.”

The cold air burned against her skin. Arya stumbled back a step, watching his dark eyes. He waited, his hands clenched at his sides. He didn’t chase her, only held himself like he was carved out of stone.

Gods but Jon was brave. And so handsome; she always loved just to look at him. Arya wanted badly to lick the scar running down his face and put her hands on the muscles of his chest. She longed to feel the shift of the muscles in his back as he worked himself into her.

It wouldn’t be at all like the whores in Braavos when they fucked. He wouldn’t let it be _bad_ for her. She didn’t think it could even be bad at all, not when he could make her burn just with his hand at her wrist. Arya shivered and gasped, then tore off the linen wrap and let the cold air touch the burning skin of her breasts and belly.

“Please, my lady,” Jon said, but even then his eyes didn’t dip off her face. It made Arya feel good, how much he wanted her to want it. It made her warm all over and inside, bubbling with pleasure so hotly it was like a pain in her.

She wanted to cup herself and rub at where it ached the most. But she didn’t want to be cruel to him. She loved him, gods but she loved him far too much.

“You’re already on my heart,” Arya said. “Since always, since I was born and got to meet you, that very first day.”

She was so shy to say it, to ask. She chewed her lip and said nervously, “I want you written on my body too.”

But most of all Arya wanted him to always have that look on his face when he looked at her just now as she said it, like the joy and love of her would rip him apart. Jon closed the space between then, put his mouth on hers, and kissed her so hard she thought it would bruise.

Gods but she hoped it did. Arya put her hands in his hair again and bit his mouth, and burned with happiness so brightly she could die of it.

* * *

> oh what is that beautiful thing  
>  that just happened?  
>  —Mary Oliver, _At Blackwater Pond_

**Author's Note:**

> A bath for every fic and a fic for every bath is the current Big Mood. I hope you enjoyed this Idest of Id fics.
> 
> If any of you wanna chat about the story, point out a horrible misspelling or grammar mistake, talk about the ship, or just chat in general please feel free to drop a comment (I promise to respond! I swear!) or email me at ao3throwaway27@gmail.com
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
